The GOP War on Truth in Education
The Republican attack on education is an attempt to obscure the connection between white supremacy, institutionalized violence, and voter suppression.
16 states have introduced or passed laws to ban or limit educators from teaching how racism has resulted in institutionalized violence and voter suppression. Jim Crow, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the Red Summer of 1919 are important reminders that those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
By Ben Railton
In recent years, we’ve started to do a better job of remembering the history of white supremacist racial terrorism in America through such vehicles as public memorials and pop culture texts, including horrific individual events such as the 1921 Tulsa massacre and the century-long lynching epidemic. But too often the stunning brutality and destruction of those acts of violence can make them seem like impromptu explosions, perhaps reflecting consistent undercurrents of racism but not the result of purposeful, extensive, organized political planning.
The New Orleans Massacre (Artwork by Theodore R. Davis for Harpers Weekly / Wikimedia Commons)
